God Is Red: A Native View of Religion

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the US agency that managed reservations and often suppressed tribal ceremonies, languages, and political life, especially during the allotment era and the late-19th/early-20th-century bans on “pagan” rites. In Deloria’s account, the BIA’s leasing practices and top-down governance helped sever religion from tribal politics and land, fueling conflicts like Black Mesa and setting the stage for confrontations such as Wounded Knee (1973).

Deloria uses “Indian” and “tribal” to stress community-defined peoples with specific lands, ceremonies, and kinship, not an abstract religious “universal.” He shows how federal roll-making and blood-quantum rules distorted who counts as a member, undermining the organic link between peoplehood, sacred places, and governance.

Indigenous denotes a broader global category for original peoples whose identities are rooted in particular homelands and ceremonial relationships to them. In the book’s terms, Indigenous perspectives highlight land-based religion and communal responsibility, standing against Christian universalism and corporate/state control of territory.